Music tradition, innovation meet in Nashville

OUR VIEW

We knew that this was Music City.

But perhaps we didn't know how much, until the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce released a new study this week on the economic impact of the music industry.

A similar study in 2006 reported that 19,000 jobs in and around Nashville were the result of the music business, but the new, more in-depth study has found that the number is around 27,000, with an additional 29,000 jobs indirectly linked. The overall impact: $9.65 billion annually.

The other music meccas - L.A., New York and Austin - if combined would still create fewer jobs.

But just what does this signify today, as Nashville receives a new accolade seemingly every week from national trend watchers?

In fact, the music industry's mark on Nashville is both affirmation for an important segment of the population after years of being taken for granted, and a challenge to a city that prides itself on creativity and embracing the new.

The reason for this is that the music business is changing radically, and it's unclear just what the industry will look like in two years, much less five or 10 years. The digital and social-media revolution has transformed how we listen to music, how musicians make music and, of course, how and if we pay for it.

While you would think that uncertainty would dampen the Music City spirit, the mood is anything but dour. Despite record-label layoffs, consolidations and the loss of some high-profile music festivals, observers see strength in Nashville's songwriting ranks that seem impervious to setbacks.

Nashville's music industry also should benefit from the city's trendiness, because that attracts a very mobile, younger high-tech workforce that will be needed to modernize the traditional record-label structure.

Local government officials, for their part, are glad to promote Middle Tennessee as a place that artists can live more affordably whether or not they have a recording deal. That is a soft-sell that is more effective even than financial incentives - although incentives did come into play in keeping production of the television series "Nashville" in Nashville.

In decades past, music makers in Nashville did not need the respect of the city's power structure. That still is true, but now that they have its respect, it doesn't hurt. And it probably helps the small music entrepreneurs, who best represent the future of the industry.

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Music tradition, innovation meet in Nashville

We knew that this was Music City. But perhaps we didn?t know how much, until the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce released a new study this week on the economic impact of the music industry.